Naive realism

Joshua Muravchik had a stimulating piece in the Sunday Washington Post on neoconservatism after Iraq. One of his points was that neoconservatives were able to influence Bush administration policy because other conservatives failed to offer any new direction after 9/11. Although key administration officials like Condi Rice and Vice President Cheney weren’t neoconservatives, they were looking for new thinking and only the neocons appeared to be supplying it. Muravchik views the Baker study group as an effort by more traditional conservatives finally to provide alternatives to the neoconservatvive approach. Stanley Kurtz at NRO’s Corner takes up a similar theme today. He sees us “moving toward a period of struggle between three foreign policy camps: dovish Democrats, hawkish Republicans, and a middle group of “realists.” According to Kurtz: